Faculty and Staff Notes

John G. W. Cowles Director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum Andria Derstine has been elected to serve on the board of trustees of the Association of Art Museum Directors.

Fairchild Professor Emeritus of Religion and East Asian Studies James Dobbins published three articles in 2022 on the Japanese Buddhist figure Daisetz Suzuki, who popularized Buddhism in America and Europe in the mid-twentieth century. The longest article, just released, is showcased in the journal The Eastern Buddhist III.2.2 published at Otani University in Kyoto, Japan.

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow/Visiting Assistant Professor in Cinema Studies Jennifer Blaylock has won the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovács Essay Award for "'Who wants a BlackBerry these days?’ Serialized new media and its trash," Screen, Volume 62, Issue 2, Summer 2021. This award recognizes the best essay in the cinema and media studies field for the year.

An excerpt of Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy Jillian Scudder's new book, The Milky Way Smells of Rum & Raspberries (Icon Books, Feb 14 2023) was published in Nautilus Magazine.

Visiting Professor of French Nathan H. Dize published an excerpt from his forthcoming translation of Haitian writer Lyonel Trouillot's novel Antoine of Gommiers in Transition: The Magazine of Africa and the Diaspora. The issue focuses on the theme of climate in Africa and its diasporas. Antoine of Gommiers is forthcoming in April 2023 with Schaffner Press.

Sandra Zagarell's essay "Why Mary E, Wilkins freeman: Why Now? What Next" has just been published in New Perspectives on Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Reading with and against the Grain (Interventions in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture).

Allegra Hyde's forthcoming story collection, The Last Catastrophe, has been named a most anticipated book of 2023 by The Millions and Our Culture. Additionally, Polygon named the collection a most anticipated science fiction and fantasy book, noting that "Allegra Hyde wrote one of 2022’s best novels, Eleutheria, and her second story collection, The Last Catastrophe, contains more optimistic visions of the future... despite the specter of climate change." The Last Catastrophe will launch in March.

Assistant Professor of Writing and Communication Cortney Smith recently published an article, "Communicating Felt Knowledge to Decolonize #MeToo: A Native Feminist Approach to the Sherman Alexie Allegations," in Feminist Formations.

The String Room Gallery at Wells College is pleased to present RE_MOVE, a transatlantic dialogue in image and text from 2019-2020 between visual artist Kasia Ozga, visiting professor of sculpture at Oberlin College and poet Dan Rosenberg, associate professor of English at Wells. The exhibition will be on display from January 24 - February 16, 2023.

Professor Kirk Ormand and David Halperin (OC ’73) have recently edited and published John J. ("Jack") Winkler's last book: Rehearsals of Manhood: Athenian Drama in Social Practice.

Professor Winkler delivered the book in progress as part of Oberlin's Martin Lectures Series in 1988 and was in the process of completing it for publication in 1990 when he passed away from complications arising from HIV infection. Ormand and Halperin have now updated that nearly-complete manuscript with references to scholarship from the last thirty years, edited the argument, and secured permissions for the 50+ images that Winkler wished included in the volume. The book will be available this February from Princeton University Press, the latest volume in the Martin Lectures series.