Faculty and Staff Notes

Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Jillian Scudder received an NSF RUI grant of $229,027 to fund her research program understanding galaxies in the nearby universe. This grant was also announced by Senator Sherrod Brown as one of seven grants coming to Northeast Ohio higher-education institutions.

Professor of History Annemarie Sammartino published a piece on Co-op City, a cooperative in the Bronx, and its lessons for affordable housing policy makers and advocates in the Made by History section of the Washington Post. The Post article draws upon her recent book, Freedomland: Co-op City and the Story of New York (Cornell UP, 2022).

Assistant Professor of Politics and Comparative American Studies Jenny Garcia published a coauthored article, "The Empowering Effects of Racial Messaging: The Link Between Racial Outreach, Descriptive Representation and Black Political Mobilization," in Political Communications.

Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of German Elizabeth Hamilton published a translation and literary-historical interpretation of Franz Fühmann and Dietmar Riemann's Was für eine Insel in was für einem Meer in an open-access digital edition with Lever Press: What Kind of Island in What Kind of Sea. First published in East Germany in 1986, the original work depicts residents of the Samariteranstalten, a church-run institution for people with cognitive disabilities, in astonishing black-and-white photographs by Riemann and in probing, poignant writing by Fühmann.

Hamilton's book was reviewed by Michele Ricci-Bell in Reading in Translation, a journal edited by Stiliana Milkova, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature. The review appears here.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian, Anna Lordan, was awarded the Theodosius and Irene Senkowsky Prize for Achievement in Ukrainian Studies at Harvard University's Ukranian Summer Institute.

David Forrest's new book, A Voice but No Power: Organizing for Social Justice in Minneapolis (University of Minnesota Press), was released this week. The book examines the work of social justice organizations in Minneapolis following the 2008 recession. Through this examination, it explains why social justice organizations more broadly so often displace as much as empower popular struggles for egalitarian and emancipatory change. And it explores how they can better reach their potential as advocates for the abolition of exploitation, discrimination, and other unjust practices. The book is available in paperback and can currently be purchased from the University of Minnesota Press at a 40% discount using this code: MN89530 (code expires Oct. 1, 2022).

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Allegra Hyde conducted several recent interviews about her novel, ELEUTHERIA. For Catapult, she spoke with Jean Marc Ah-Sen about the concept of climate fiction and reckoning with the patterns of the past. For the EcoTheo Review, she spoke with Esteban Rodriguez about the relationship between literature and activism. And for 91.3 WYSO, she spoke to Vick Mickunas about how storytelling can be a source of entertainment as well as a pointed call to action.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Shuming Chen recently published a paper in Nature Communications, "Selective skeletal editing of polycyclic arenes using organophotoredox dearomative functionalization." Co-authors on the article include Cassie Davies ’24 and collaborators from UCLA and the University of Arizona.

Professor of Classics Kirk Ormand has had one of his essays (originally published in French) published in English. "Perversion in Antiquity? Foucault, Seneca, and Psychiatric Reasoning," appears in Foucault, Sexuality, Antiquity, edited by Sandra Boehringer and Daniele Lorenzini (Routledge 2022), pp. 47-64. The essay originally appeared as “Peut-on parler de perversion dans l'Antiquité? Foucault et l'invention du raisonnement psychiatrique,” in  Foucault, la sexualité, l’Antiquité, eds. S. Boehringer and D. Lorenzini.

(Éditions Kimé, 2016).

Professor of Piano Peter Takács has released "The Complete Music for Piano and Cello" with cellist Robert DeMaine on Leaf Music. His "Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas" is being released in high definition by the Dutch distributor nativeDSD. A new label, PeterTakácsMusic, has been created to present new recordings on all available streaming platforms, including Spotify, TIDAL, and Apple Music. The initial release is Franz Schubert's Four Impromptus, Op. 90.

Visit https://www.facebook.com/PeterTakacsPianist for more information.