Faculty and Staff Notes

Associate Professor of Organ Jonathan Moyer spent part of his summer in Europe on a concert tour that included recitals on three of the most prominent pipe organs in the north German cities of Lüneburg, Hamburg, and Schwerin. The organ of St. Johannis in Lüneburg originated in 1553 by Dutch organ builder Hendrik Niehoff and was enlarged over the ensuing centuries. The prominent organist Georg Böhm served the church from 1698 until his death in 1733 and likely mentored a young Johann Sebastian Bach between 1700-1702. Moyer’s second concert was on the new Flentrop organ (2013) in St. Katharinen, one of Hamburg’s largest churches. The new 4-manual and pedal organ with 61 stops is a replication of the historic organ that was destroyed during WWII. The church boasted some of the most prominent organists of the 17th century and was the site of J.S. Bach’s Hamburg audition in 1720. Moyer’s final concert was on the 1871 organ by Friederich Ladegast in Schwerin Cathedral. The organ was Ladegast’s largest and final instrument and includes an array of ventil pedals and pneumatic assists to aid in the rapid change of tonal registrations, a demand of the prevailing Romantic aesthetic taste. Franz Liszt was a prominent advocate for Ladegast’s instruments and premiered many of his organ works on Ladegast’s instrument in Merseburg Cathedral.

Assistant Professor of Theater Anjanette Hall will appear in the regional premiere of Make Believe by Bess Wohl at Dobama Theatre in Cleveland, October 6-29. The play was awarded "Best Off-Broadway Play" (2019 Outer Critics Circle) and "Top Ten Plays of 2019" (The New York Times). Make Believe also features scenic design by Laura Carlson-Tarantowski, Scenic Designer and Lecturer for the Theater department.

Hal Sundt's first nonfiction book, Warplane: How the Military Reformers Birthed the A-10 Warthog, was published on October 3, 2023. It chronicles the design, development, and service life of the A-10 Warthog attack airplane.

Assistant Professor of Theater Kari Barclay's new book Directing Desire explores the rise of consent-based and trauma-informed approaches to staging sexually and sensually charged scenes for theater in the contemporary U.S., known as intimacy choreography. The book comes out in print October 25 but is available now for pre-order from Barnes and Noble and the e-book is available online now.

In August, Danforth Professor of Politics Emerita Sonia Kruks presented a paper at the conference "Simone de Beauvoir and Post-Truth" at the University of Helsinki (Finland). Her paper, "Old Age and the Question of Bad Faith" examined the ways in which society's fear and denial of old age can injure those who are already old.

A new book, Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory: Essays in Honor of Kevin Korsyn (Routledge), was released in July 2023 and edited by two University of Michigan alumni who studied with Professor Korsyn while completing graduate degrees—Bryan Parkhurst, associate professor of music theory and aural skills at Oberlin College and Conservatory, and Jeffrey Swinkin, associate professor of music theory at the University of Oklahoma School of Music. The volume consists of an introduction and interview with Korsyn and nine essays that pay tribute to Korsyn’s decades of scholarship by exploring a variety of topics important to Korsyn and the field. Parkhurst contributed to the introduction as well as the Chapter 8 essay, “Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy.” The editors invitation to readers of the book—“a kaleidoscopic array of perspectives”—“will find provocative lines of inquiry, genuine musical and humanistic curiosity, and exploratory, nondogmatic approaches to and attitudes toward theorizing music—challenges, not answers.”

Professor of Classics Kirk Ormand has published a new book, The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Queer Theory, coedited with Ella Haselswerdt and Sara Lindheim. The volume contains 32 essays by a group of scholars from the United States and Europe. Professor Ormand also wrote the introductory essay, titled "How Did We Get Here?" Available now from Routledge Press.

Emeritus Professor of History Steven Volk participated in a panel discussion of the lessons of Chile, 50 years after the coup, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in Washington, DC, along with Chile's Ambassador to the United States, Juan Gabriel Valdés, and Senator Tom Harkin.

Emeritus Professor of Computer Science Richard Salter has been selected to present a talk entitled "A platform for simulating multi-behavioral mode animal movement over complex landscapes" at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in November. Salter's participation is being underwritten by the Institute. The talk is part of the Institute's workshop "Modelling non-Markov Movement Processes".

The Isaac Newton Institute is a national and international visitor research institute in Cambridge, England. It runs research programmes on selected themes in mathematics and the mathematical sciences with applications over a wide range of science and technology. It attracts leading mathematical scientists from the UK and overseas to interact in research over an extended period.

Salter and Distinguished Professor Emeritus Wayne M. Getz of the University of California at Berkeley have been collaborating since 2011, continuing past Salter's retirement from Oberlin in 2016. Their work has resulted in more than 15 publications, several Websites, and workshops preented in Israel, South Africa and Hong Kong. It has been supported by several grants from the National Science Foundation, including one currently in collaboration with the University of Oklahoma to research the spread of bird flu.

EUDEBA (a leading Argentine academic publisher) has brought out a Spanish translation of Marc's Politics as a Science: A Prolegomenon (coauthored with Philippe Schmitter, Emeritus Professor at the European Universities Institute). Translations into Arabic and Chinese are in the works.