Faculty and Staff Notes

Associate Professor of Contemporary Music and Improvisation Dana Jessen released a new full-length album August 23 called Dark Currents (Cantaloupe Music) with her chamber ensemble Splinter Reeds.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Danielle Godon-Decoteau published an article in the Asian American Journal of Psychology titled “Internalized Racism and Asian American Mental Health.” In it, she considers how the dialectic of being othered in both devalued and idealized ways shapes internalized racism in Asian Americans and its impact on racism-related stress and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress.

Jody Kerchner, a professor of music education at Oberlin since 1996, was elected to a two-year term as president-elect of the International Society for Music Education. The appointment was announced at the 36th world conference in Helsinki in July. Kerchner joined ISME in 1998 and has served on its board and executive team.

Professor of Philosophy Todd Ganson published the paper “Not All Sensory Systems Are Information Channels: Outliers from Plant Biology and Beyond.” It appears as a chapter in the book Philosophy of Plant Cognition, published by Routledge.

Professor of Flute Alexa Still performed Jacarandas, a recent work composed by her colleague Assistant Professor of Composition Michael Frazier, on the August 2 Gala concert of the National Flute Association's 52nd Annual Convention, in San Antonio.

Professor of Psychology and Environmental Studies Cindy Frantz was interviewed for a National Public Radio story about popular music and environmental activism that aired August 17. Frantz addressed the power of group settings such as rock concerts to encourage participation in championing environmental causes.

Emeritus Professor of Anthropology Jack Glazier’s book Been Coming Through Some Hard Times: Race, History and Memory in Western Kentucky was reissued by the University of Tennessee Press, with a new foreword by noted historian W. Fitzhugh Brundage. The book is described as “a unique study of race and racism across two centuries in the hinterland of the upper South. Its implications are at once depressingly familiar and distinctly fresh.”

Afterlives of the Black Atlantic, a major exhibition at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in 2019-2020, was shortlisted for a 2024 Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association. The award honors "important contributions to the dissemination and understanding of African and African Diaspora Arts made through exhibitions." Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey shares the prize with Afterlives co-curator and former Ellen Johnson ’33 Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the AMAM Andrea Gyorody.

Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey's 2023 book Insignificant Things: Amulets and the Art of Survival in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke University Press) has been named one of four winners of the 2024 Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award. Given every three years by the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, the prize honors “excellence in scholarship on the arts of Africa and the African Diaspora." Earlier this year, Insignificant Things also won the 2024 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award from the College Art Association, one of highest scholarly honors in the field of art history. Insignificant Things is the first book to win both prizes.

Assistant Dean and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life Samia Mansour attended the 2024 Interfaith Leadership Summit hosted by Interfaith America with two student leaders. Through her participation in this summit and her completion of the Religion and Public Life online course, Samia earned her certificate in Interfaith Leadership.