Faculty and Staff Notes

Assistant Professor of Music Theory Christa Cole ’17 recently gave the keynote talk at the annual Western University Graduate Symposium on Music. In her talk, “Effort as Structure in Musical Performance,” Cole analyzed dimensions of effort—gesture, instrumental affordances, and performativity—in works by post-1900 composers, and she showed how effort itself can serve as a structuring dimension of music.

Professor of Classics Kirk Ormand co-organized an international conference on the topic of "Women in/and Invective in Greek and Roman Antiquity." Held in Strasbourg, France, from May 26-28, the conference was co-sponsored by the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Strasbourg, and Oberlin College; it included participants from the U.S., France, and U.K. Ormand's paper was titled "Origin Stories: Archilochos and His Muses."

Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova published an article in Spanish, "Ariadna en la playa: las mitologías de Elena Ferrante," and two book reviews: Vera Mutafchieva's The Case of Cem (translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel) and Nadia Terranova's The Night Trembles (translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein).

In June, Professor of Dance Ann Cooper Albright was honored with the Dance Studies Association's 2025 Outstanding Scholarly Research in Dance Award for her sustained contributions to the field of dance studies, which include six monographs and four edited collections of essays. She also taught intensive contact workshops on the east and west coasts this summer.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Anna Levett published the article “'The Trees' POV': Refugee Landscapes in Postrevolutionary Tunisian Cinema." It appeared as part of the roundtable "Ecocritical Terrains: Rethinking Tamazghan and Middle Eastern Landscapes" in the flagship area studies journal International Journal of Middle East Studies. Levett also recently published an interview with Robyn Creswell, a scholar and translator of Arabic, in Reading in Translation.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics Amanda Zadorian published a new book chapter about decolonial approaches to studying Ukraine. "From Soviet Oil Heritage to a European Energy Future in Ukraine" appears in the edited volume After Oil with Springer Nature.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Danielle Godon-Decoteau and two Oberlin students, Huyen Kim and Victoria Adair, won third prize for their poster presentation "Bottom-up Racial Socialization: U.S.-Born Asian Americans’ Initiation of Conversations About Race with their Immigrant Elders" at the Asian American Psychological Association's Annual Convention in Denver.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion Francesca Chubb-Confer presented research on Sufism and translation in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, for the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies conference held in partnership with the Tashkent State University of Oriental Studies.

Frederick B. Artz Professor of History Leonard V. Smith published “The League of Nations and the Global Legal Order,” in Robert Kolb and Momchil Milanov, eds., Cambridge History of International Law, 13 Vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), 10: 41-67. The article considers legalism as an ordering discourse in a pivotal phase of the evolution of the international system.

Associate Professor of Percussion Ross Karre ’05 and violinist Emily Cornelius ’05 concluded their 2024-25 season of duo concerts with a recording of Arvo Pärt’s Fratres (arranged for violin and percussion by Karre). Cornelius and Karre will perform throughout the 2025-26 season on Oberlin’s campus and at venues in Northeast Ohio and Michigan.