Faculty and Staff Notes

Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Jillian Scudder gave an invited lecture on some of the stories in her book The Milky Way Smells of Rum & Raspberries to the Cuyahoga Astronomical Association on February 9 in Berea, Ohio.

Professor of Classics Kirk Ormand chaired a panel and delivered an address at the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies in San Francisco, the culmination of his year as SCS president. The panel, titled “Good Classics in Bad Times,” examined the need to study the ancient Mediterranean in socially responsible ways, amid the context of attacks on DEI in higher education. Ormand’s talk, “Father Lycambes and the Frog Brigade,” used the archaic Greek poetry of Archilochus to argue for resistance against deployment of federal agents in American cities and anti-trans rhetoric.

Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey delivered the lecture "Unsettled Maps: Black Cartographies of Brazil’s Long Eighteenth Century" at the Department of History of Art & Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh on January 29. Rarey's lecture was part of the department's "Reparative Histories of Art" series. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the project seeks new methods to center and rethink social justice in the discipline of art history.

Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey published the essay "Anxious Cartographies: Mapping Quilombos in Colonial Brazil” in Black Atlantic Worlds: Landscape Histories of the African Diaspora. The volume brings together writings from distinct disciplines addressing the impact of African diaspora studies on landscape, geography, and belonging across the Atlantic world.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Nicholas Anderman chaired “On the Waterfront: Art at Work,” a public event in Oakland, California, hosted by Long-Haul magazine. The event was favorably reviewed in the Oakland Review of Books.

Professor of Philosophy Todd Ganson’s article "The dual role of sensory systems: reporting on stimuli and affordances" was published in the journal Biology & Philosophy.

Lecturer of Creative Writing Amanda Hodes’ poem "Video Game Progress Narrative" was published in Raleigh Review (15.2).

Asif Iqbal, visiting assistant professor of English and Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Postcolonial World Literature, authored the article "Desh or Ummah: Bengali Muslim Literary Enigma in Anisuzzaman's Muslim-manas O Bangla Sahitya, 1757-1918," which was published in the BRAC University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (vol. 12). A review of Iqbal's book Bangladesh in Anglophone and Vernacular Literature: Cultural Imaginings of a Postcolonial Nation was published in The Friday Times. 

Associate Professor of English Gillian Johns was named to the board of directors of the August Wilson Society, a multidisciplinary community of educators, visual and performing artists, students, theater professionals, and theater lovers dedicated to commemorating Wilson's legacy. Johns teaches the course August Wilson: The Century Cycle.

Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Joshua Sperling was interviewed by The Times (of London) for an article on Landman, Trump, and shifting Hollywood norms.