Faculty and Staff Notes

On Tuesday August 2, 2022, Robert Klock OC ’21 and Xiaoyun Gong OC ’21 presented research papers coauthored by James F. Clark Professor of Mathematics Robert Bosch OC ’85 at the 2022 Bridges Math/Art Conference. Both papers are available at the Bridges Archive. Rob and Bob's paper, "Controlling Textures in TSP Art," can be viewed at this link, and Xiaoyun and Bob's paper, "Collaborative Gomoku Mosaics," is available for viewing here.

Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies Sergio Gutierrez Negron has published the article "La impresión conservadora: los hermanos Uribe y Alcalde y el campo tipográfico del primer conservadurismo mexicano, 1828-1836” in Decimonónica: A Journal of Nineteenth Century Hispanic Cultural Production. Halfway between biographical reconstruction and cultural analysis, this article offers a joint profile of minor printers Tomás and José Uribe y Alcalde, who were active in Mexico between 1822 and 1836. This account allows the reader to observe the inner workings of the Mexican typographical field and its relationship to the nascent economy of conservative knowledge, as well as the possibility of social mobility it provided.

Annemarie Sammartino's new book Freedomland: Co-op City and the Story of New York (Cornell University Press, 2022) on the Bronx housing development and neighborhood Co-op City was featured on the "Bowery Boys Bookshelf." The Bowery Boys is a popular podcast about the history of New York City.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Shuming Chen has recently published a paper in ACS Catalysis: "Visible Light-Mediated, Highly Diastereoselective Epimerization of Lactams from the Most Accessible to the More Stable Stereoisomer." Co-authors include Cassie Davies '24 and collaborators from Yale University.

Catherine Oertel recently published an article, "(C₅H₆N)Pb₂X₅ (X = Cl, Br): Hybrid Lead Halides Based on Seven-Coordinate Pb(II)," in Inorganic Chemistry. Coauthors on this paper were Alyssa Chow ’20 and Xinyue (Joy) Zhong ’22 as well as collaborators from Purdue University and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Germany.

Jan Miyake, associate professor of music theory and director for Oberlin Conservatory’s Music Theory Division, has been elected as the next president of the Society for Music Theory. The society promotes music theory as both a scholarly and a pedagogical discipline. Its members are scholars, teachers, and students of music theory, as well as performers, composers, and scholars in related areas such as musicology, ethnomusicology, philosophy, media studies, and cognitive science. 

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Chanda Feldman publishes two poems, "[Independence Day]" and "Who Plays...," in the Southern Indiana Review.

Erwin N. Griswold Professor of Politics Emeritus Harry Hirsch has published his first novel, an Ivy League mystery, entitled "Shade" (published under H.N. Hirsch).

Professor Kirk Ormand recently published an article, “Ovid’s Hermaphroditus and the mollis Male,” in Ramus 51 (2022): 74-104. In this piece, Ormand examines Ovid's telling of the story of Hermaphroditus in comparison to the Roman sculptural and painted traditions of the intersexed Greek divinity from the first century CE.

Professor of Classics Kirk Ormand recently participated in a conference sponsored by the project AVISA and the Maison de Sciences de l'Homme of the Université Paris-Saclay, on the topic of  "Le harcèlement sexuel dans l'antiquité et sa réception contemporaine," ("Sexual harassment in antiquity and its contemporary reception") June 6-7, 2022. Professor Ormand's paper was titled "Can we speak of sexual harassment in the Athenian courts?"