Faculty and Staff Notes

Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey published his essay “Sela Adjei: Seeing in Black" in the edited volume Zadokeli: Efo Sela x Mawuli Adzei x Elikplim Akorli. The essay analyzes the work of contemporary Ghanaian artist Sela Adjei, placing it in a longer history of abstract painting employed by 20th-century Black artists and social movements in West Africa and the United States.

Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey was interviewed by host Rick Jackson on WKSU's The Sound of Ideas on May 25. He discussed his new book, Insignificant Things: Amulets and the Art of Survival in the Early Black Atlantic, and the wider history of art, enslavement, and religious practices in eighteenth-century West Africa, Brazil, and Portugal.

Francis D Federighi Professor in Natural Sciences and Professor of Physics Yumi Ijiri has coauthored an article with Oberlin graduate Alex Yu ’23 in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds, titled "Structural and magnetic properties of magnetostrictive Fe-Ga-Zr nanocrystalline alloy." The work was done in collaboration with researchers at Case Western Reserve University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Professor of East Asian Studies Sheila Miyoshi Jager gave a talk at Stanford University on May 11, 2023, on her new book, The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern Eats Asia.

Oberlin violin professor Francesca dePasquale is a featured teacher for the 2023 Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies—a biennial master class series for 12 highly accomplished young violinists. Held at The Juilliard School, the symposium is dedicated to fostering the legacy of the late renowned teacher Dorothy DeLay, a violinist who studied at Oberlin Conservatory in 1933-34.

DePasquale’s May 24 master class showcased her work with five students who brought performances of concertos by Wieniawski, Prokofiev, Sibelius, and Shostakovich, as well as the Bartok Second Rhapsody. It was covered by violinist and writer Laurie Niles in an insightful article for Violinist.com. It provides a window into how dePasquale teaches and thinks about how to deliver great musical performances—and her focus, in this class, “on finding the most ergonomic and tension-free way to play, harnessing the energy of performance, and zooming in on details such as rhythm and articulation to affect the larger musical picture.”

Professor of East Asian Studies Sheila Miyoshi Jager introduced her new book, The Other Great Game, at the Wilson Center through its Washington History Seminar program on Monday, May 22.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Shuming Chen has recently published two papers. "Expedited synthesis of α-amino acids by single-step enantioselective α-amination of carboxylic acids" appeared in Nature Synthesis. Coauthors include Drew Dansby ’24 and collaborators from Marburg, Germany.  "Chemo-, Stereo- and Regioselective Fluoroallylation/Annulation of Hydrazones with gem-Difluorocyclopropanes via Tunable Palladium/NHC Catalysis" was published in Angewandte Chemie. Coauthors on this article include Hieu Nguyen ’25 and collaborators from Renmin University of China.

Evan Kresch presented his paper "What We Do in the Shadows: How Urban Density Facilitates Information Diffusion" in the NOVAFRICA seminar series at the Nova SBE in Lisbon, Portugal.

Grace An was commissioned to write a catalogue essay for the Cinémathèque Française, France's premier film institution, which is launching its first exhibition devoted to a non-male filmmaker: Agnès Varda. The essay explored Varda's "revolutionary" short films during the 1960s, including Black Panthers and Salut les Cubains. The exhibit will open October 2023 and close in January 2024.

An was also commissioned to write a short piece about the film Annie colère (Blandine Lenoir, 2022) for a special issue of Imaginaires (formerly French Film for Historians) dedicated to reproductive politics and care. An is a member of the journal's advisory board.

Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Jillian Scudder was interviewed live on WWL radio for an hour on May 11 about all things space.