Faculty Digest

American Studies

Affiliated Scholar Pamela Hollie was awarded an honorary doctorate at Washburn University in her home town of Topeka, Kansas, on May 15.

Anthropology

In November 2003, Kenneth Smail had two essays published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology: "Remembering Malthus II: Establishing Sustainable Population Optimums" and "Remembering Malthus III: Implementing a Global Population Reduction." These essays elaborated on Smail's earlier statement, "Remembering Malthus: A Preliminary Argument for a Significant Reduction in Global Human Numbers," published in the July 2002 AJPA. With respect to the ideas articulated within these essays, Smail was pleased to receive encouragement from Garrett Hardin, the recently deceased author of the well-known 1968 essay "The Tragedy of the Commons." Hardin wrote, "You have polished the earlier presentation of your position to the point that it is just about unanswerable. Frankly, in a history of population thought written fifty years from now, I think your contribution will be labelled the most important one after Malthus. Certainly it is the most courageous."

Art History

After editing final proofs for the volume Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and England, Sarah Blick turned her attention to publishing the journal Peregrinations on the Internet and reading through the first drafts of essays submitted for Beyond Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges: A Volume in Honor of Brian Spencer. She is writing an article for this collection on the iconographic relationship of images of St. Thomas Becket and St. Edward the Confessor at Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. She is also preparing a short article, "Foldable, Portable, Personal Shrines and Altars: The Pilgrim Souvenir as a Toy and Memento," for the Pilgrim Badge Newsletter.

Biology

Karen Hicks spoke at a retirement symposium held in honor of Judy Voet, her undergraduate thesis advisor at Swarthmore College. Hicks attended the Fifteenth International Conference on Arabidopsis research with her honors student, Kathy Lynd '04, in Berlin, Germany, July 11-14, where both presented posters.

Chemistry

Scott Cummings wrapped up his sabbatical research project at the University of Chicago in June and prepared two manuscripts for publication on the work completed. He attended the Council on Undergraduate Research Conference June 23-26 at the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse, and the Fifteenth International Symposium on Photochemistry and Photophysics of Coordination Compounds July 4-9 in Hong Kong. He spent the remainder of the summer on a comprehensive review article on platinum terpyridine complexes.

Classics

Paolo Asso was in Italy during June and July continuing his work on Roman Africa. Robert Bennett appeared as the Lord Chancellor in the Kenyon Opera Workshop's May production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe. He will teach a new course in translation next fall entitled "Slavery in the Ancient Mediterranean World." Carolin Hahnemann organized a reading of sections of Ovid's Metamorphoses in Latin and Rilke's poem on Eurydice in German for a group of high-school students who came to Kenyon from Dublin, Ohio, in April. They are the students of Daniel Foley, a part-time assistant football coach at the College. The students also attended the Kenyon College Dramatic Club production of Metamorphoses, directed by Professor of Drama Harlene Marley. Hahnemann will be on sabbatical during the 2004-05 academic year working at the Epigraphical Center at Ohio State University. Adam Serfass remained in Gambier over the summer continuing his work on early church finance. He presented a paper at the Northern American Patristics Society Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, in May on "Economics of the Early Church." The Department of Classics has hired a new faculty member, Amber Scaife, who received her Ph.D. from Ohio State University in June. In the fall, she will teach a section of beginning Latin and an advanced Greek course on the novels of Lucian and Longus. In the spring, she will teach a new course in translation called "Sincerely Yours: Letters and Letter Writing in Ancient Rome."

English

Courtney Angela Brkic spent June and July at Schloss Wiepersdorf, a writers' residency outside Berlin, Germany. Her second book, The Stone Fields: an Epitaph for the Living, is due in August from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. In early May, Barnes and Noble released The Foundations of Western Civilization: Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, prepared by Associate Professor of English and IPHS Timothy Baker Shutt. The package consists of eight CDs with fourteen lectures and a 120-page accompanying book. It is on sale nationwide and at one point was among the company's top 300 sales in all categories. In July, a second book and series are due on Monsters, Gods, and Heroes: The Epic, which deals with the works of Homer, Virgil, the Beowulf poet, Dante, Spenser, and Milton. A third series on the literary works of C.S. Lewis is expected in the fall.

History

Ruth Dunnell traveled around China and Mongolia from late May through early July researching a biography of Chinggis Khan with the assistance of her daughter and a photographer. Dunnell begins a two-year term as chair of the history department in August.

Mathematics

Brad Hartlaub provided "An Update on the AP Statistics Program" to more than one hundred teachers at the Ninth Annual Panel Presentation for AP Statistics Teachers during a conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in April. From June 9 to 19, he organized the efforts of 290 college and university professors and high-school teachers in Lincoln, Nebraska, to grade approximately 65,000 exams. He spoke at the AP National Conference held July 15-19 in Orlando, Florida, and led an AP Statistics Institute at Hamburger University from July 26 to 30 in Chicago, Illinois. Other speaking engagements took him to a Beyond the Formula Conference on August 5-6 in Rochester, New York, and the Joint Statistical Meetings on August 8-12 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Modern Languages and Literatures

Jianhua Bai presented a paper entitled "Considerations for CFL Writing Instruction at the Beginning Level" at the Annual Conference of Ohio Foreign Language Association in March. In collaboration with Associate Professor of History Ruth Dunnell, he presented reflections on the teaching of "Understanding China through Film and Fiction" at the annual conference of AsiaNet in April. Throughout the year, Bai participated in a research project on developing multimedia Learning Objects (advanced Chinese reading materials) at the National Foreign Language Center in Washington, D.C.

Music

Camilla Cai spent time in Norway this summer for vacation as well as research in the National Library in Oslo. The balance of the summer was spent in the mountains of Maine, working on a new draft of her book on Norwegian music in America. Her plans include attending the International Edvard Grieg Conference in Leipzig, Germany, in September. Henry Spiller spent the summer in libraries and archives in New York City, Holland, and Berkeley, California, researching the activities of several North American and European musicians and dancers who studied and performed in Java in the early part of the twentieth century. His research is supported by a Whiting Research Grant. His book, Gamelan: The Traditional Sounds of Indonesia, was scheduled to be published
this summer.

Political Science

Fred Baumann was in Padua, Italy, as a tutor of a seminar on "The Two World Systems of Galileo Galilei," held at the University of Padua May 5-9. One of his co-tutors was John Agresto, formerly a professor at Kenyon and also an honorary degree holder, who is currently in charge of higher education in Iraq. The seminar was organized on the St. John's College model by a group of professionals and businessmen, who for seven years have been reading and discussing classic texts at seminars in this way.

Religious Studies

Joseph Adler attended the Third Annual Seminar on Dunhuang Art and Society from June 27 to July 17 in Luoyang, Lanzhou, and Dunhuang, People's Republic of China.

Sociology

John Macionis was an invited speaker at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he addressed graduating sociology majors. A Russian language translation of the U.S. edition of his textbook Sociology was recently published. The book is now in six non-English languages.

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