Faculty and Staff Notes

Professor of Politics Stephen Crowley’s opinion piece “To Resist Trump, Divide His Supporters” appeared on Truthout.

Professor of Physics Stephen FitzGerald was awarded a three-year, $310,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support his project entitled "RUI: Probing adsorbate interactions in metal-organic frameworks using site selective spectroscopy."  This research examines hydrogen storage for fuel-cell applications and isotope separation for chemical labeling, medical tracing, and heavy water moderators.  The grant provides funds for on-going student participation and the acquisition of a specialized mass-spectrometer.  

Crystal Biruk, assistant professor of anthropology, delivered an invited lecture on her forthcoming book Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World at Oxford College of Emory University on February 16, 2017.

Gina Perez, professor of comparative American studies, has written an op-ed "In defense of Ohio's sanctuary cities." The article was published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies, has written an article "Why the Dutch Are Drawn to Right-Wing Populist Geert Wilders." The article was published in The Nation.

Anuradha Dingwaney Needham, the Donald R. Longman professor of English and cinema studies, has received a Fulbright-Nehru fellowship to conduct research in India on a collaborative project with well-known feminist scholar Rajeswari Sunder Rajan. Together, they are working on a monograph provisionally entitled Sighting/Citing/Siting Women in Postcolonial Indian Cinema: Feminist Readings. This project examines two periods, 1945-1965 and 1970-1990, in Indian cinema that witnessed a slew of women-centered films (i.e., films centering women as protagonists and/or engaging with issues related to women’s status and roles in society). The fellowship will enable Needham to examine archival materials at the Indian National Film Archives and meet with her collaborator and Indian film scholars. 

Marco Wilkinson, managing editor of Oberlin College Press and instructor this spring of RHET 209 Art of the Lyric Essay: Experiments in Creative Nonfiction, presented at the AWP Conference as part of the panel, "Essaying on the Edge: Teaching Alternative Forms of Nonfiction," reported on by Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies.

Professor of German Steve Huff published an article titled "A Collision of Values: Text, Music, and Nascent Enlightenment in J.C. Gottsched's and J.S. Bach's Trauerode" (Lessing Yearbook XLIII 2016, 9-33). Co-authored with Dan Zager, the former Oberlin College Director of the Music Library who is now with the Eastman School of Music, the paper treats aesthetic and ideological tensions inherent in the transitional period between Baroque and Enlightenment and demonstrates how these are reflected in the Trauerode.

Ann Cooper Albright, professor and chair of the department of dance, led “Teaching in Three Dimensions” at Reed College in January 2017.  The daylong workshop was sponsored by the office of institutional diversity and was specifically designed for junior faculty and advanced graduate students working on issues of diversity in the classroom. While in the Northwest, she also taught a workshop entitled “Training a Political Body” for professional dancers at FLOCK, a cooperative studio in downtown Portland.

Rian Brown-Orso, associate professor of cinema studies and new media, received a 2017 individual excellence award from the Ohio Arts Council.