Faculty and Staff Notes

Assistant Professor of Violin Francesca dePasquale will present “Understanding and Navigating Hypermobility for String Students and Educators” at the 2026 American String Teachers Association National Conference in San Francisco. To learn more, read recent interviews with dePasquale on the topic via Presto Music and The Strad.

Emeritus Professor of Anthropology Jack Glazier’s acclaimed book, Anthropology and Radical Humanism, recently published in paperback by Michigan State University Press, includes a new foreword by Grant Arndt highlighting the inventive person-centered narratives of the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) and African Americans born into slavery. Originally collected by anthropologists Paul Radin and Andrew Polk Watson, the narratives disclose a universal creative imagination, further supporting the longstanding anti-racism of American anthropology. 

Associate Professor of Theater Marya Sea Kaminski directed Amy Herzog’s Tony-nominated adaptation of An Enemy of the People, assistant-directed by Oberlin senior Evelyn Walker, in Pittsburgh. Ibsen’s explosive classic feels strikingly contemporary, confronting truth, power, and public responsibility in ways that resonate today. The production was hailed for its urgency and bold performances.

Lecturer of Creative Writing Amanda Hodes' new poem "Climate Glitch" was published in the winter/spring issue of Gulf Coast Literary Journal (38.1).

Assistant Professor of East Asian Religions Andrew Macomber published a Japanese translation of Abe Yasurō’s article "The Five Forms Liturgy and the Five Viscera Mandala: The Genealogy of the Religious Body in Medieval Japan." It appeared in Japanese Religions.

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Ghassan Abou-Zeineddine was awarded a grant from the Ohio Arts Council to support the writing of his new story collection, There’s Plenty of Sunshine Where You’re Headed (Tin House/Zando, spring 2027). In eight tragicomic stories set across Lebanon and Dearborn, Michigan, the collection explores the complexities of the Arab and Arab American experience. 

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Ghassan Abou-Zeineddine gave a talk on the art of comedic writing in fiction in the Creative Writing Lecture Series at Columbia University on January 28.

Professor of Comparative American Studies Gina Pérez and Shelley Lee (Brown University) co-host the podcast The Confluence: Ethnic Studies and the Public Good. It is part of a larger initiative Lee is directing at Brown University's Cogut Institute for the Humanities called The Origins and Afterlives of Ethnic Studies. The first episode features an interview with Robin D.G. Kelley (University of California, Los Angeles) and George Lipsitz (emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara).

Professor of Comparative American Studies Gina Pérez wrote an op-ed that appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer analyzing the ways narratives around the killing of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January resonate with responses to the killing of four church women from the Diocese of Cleveland in the 1980s by the Salvadoran National Guard. Both then and now, the blaming of victims reflects a disturbing culture of impunity that allows state actors to use lethal violence against those who question the status quo.

Associate Professor of Politics and Comparative American Studies Jenny Garcia, along with Christopher Stout (University of California, San Diego) and Katherine Tate (Brown University), published the book Black Voices in the Halls of Power: Race and Rhetorical Representation in Congress (Cambridge University Press).